peter joseph

The Zeitgeist Movement – on Boom and Bust

fear of scarcity… and the necessity to compete for that scarcity

market needs inefficiency

the system is not predicated on anything that is sustainable.. esp social sustainability

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Inside the Zeitgeist Revolution | Exclusive Interview

oct 2013

scarcity…. dishonesty… regulation..

bush – power of oil

obama – power banking

all regulation is corruption in one form or another…

if you want to get rid of scarcity in the world now – you have to get rid of the market

market wants scarcity and needs inefficiency

we can do more and more with less.. but we have to actually engineer our society to facilitate that..

cultural sustainability… we are not sustainable – because our market promotes inequality

competitive behavior – creates constant wealth imbalance

inequality – leads to psycho-social stress – when we see others doing better than us – it messes us up

the argument of the movement – this is not necessary…

poverty is the worst war of violence – ghandi

commerce/competition/ will keep us in this pluralistic ignorance…

game theory – you are going to win and some are going to lose – no equality

when the 99% of occupy realize this.. the game is over.. because the 99% way out weigh the 1%

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TEDxOjai – The Big Question

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ZDay 2012 – Vancouver – ‘Origins and Adaptations’ Part 1

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find/follow Peter:

Peter Joseph (born 1979) is an American independent filmmaker and social activist. He has written, directed, narrated, scored, and produced three documentary films called Zeitgeist: The Movie (2007), Zeitgeist: Addendum(2008), and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011). He is the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement and on the steering committee of Project Peace on Earth.

Joseph also writes and produces the web series Culture in Decline. In 2013 he directed the Black Sabbath music video “God Is Dead?”

Neither the great political and financial power structures of the world, nor the specialization-blinded professionals, nor the population in general realize that…it is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on earth at a “higher standard of living than any have ever known”. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival. War is obsolete. -R. Buckminster Fuller

There is no statement more erroneous than the declaration that “this is my idea”. Such notions are byproducts of a material culture that has been reinforced in seeking physical rewards, usually via money, in exchange for the illusion of their “proprietary” creations. Very often an ego association is culminated as well where an individual claims prestige about their “credit” for an idea or invention.

..efficiency is relative in this sense as only when there is an expansion of knowledge that what was once considered the “best” approach becomes “inferior”.

ed.. et al.. efficiency may even in fact increase, ie: more with 4.0 and higher entrance exam scores; however, via Denise – 95% admit to cheating. so how is that working for us. .. adding to stress for sure.. taking away time.. for sure.. keeping us distracted (haymitch) for sure..

Perhaps, for example, the use of individual automobiles, regardless of their safety, has other inherent problems that can only be logically resolved by the removal of the automobile application itself. Perhaps in a city, with an expanding mobile population, such independent vehicle transport becomes unnecessarily cumbersome, slow and generally inefficient.

car to get us around. it’s created. people get killed in car accidents. we put in air bags.. humans still human.. so still crash. we create cars that are more efficient than humans in detecting an accident.. but still millions die in accidents. so could say efficiency better.. but from what. not from getting people places… because now we’re adding deaths. [same for tests.. not only are people not really learning the stuff.. adding stress.. adding deaths (suicides]

A powerful yet often overlooked consequence of our environmental vulnerability to adapt to the existing culture is that our very identity and personality is often linked to the institutions, practices, trends and hence values we are born into and exist in. This psychological adaptation and inevitable familiarity creates a comfort zone which, over time, can be painful to disrupt, regardless of how well reasoned the data standing to the contrary of what we believe may be.

While such phrases as “thinking outside the box” might be common rhetoric today in the activist community, seldom are the foundations of our way of thinking and the integrity of our most established institutions challenged. They are, more often than not, considered to be “givens” and assumed inalterable.

when discussing the organization of a new social system, people often project their current values and concerns into the new model without considering the vast change of context inherent which would likely nullify such concerns immediately

The xenophobic and mafia-like mentality indigenous to the nation-state today, often in the form of “patriotism”, is a source of severe destabilization and inhumanity in general

Interestingly, virtually all so-called “corruption” which we may define as “crime” in the world today is based upon the very same mentality assumed to guide “progress” in the world through the competitive interest.

The very idea of wishing to support “your country” and ignoring or even enjoying the failure of others, is a destabilizing value system.

It is not enough to simply gather global “leaders” at a table to discuss their problems. The structure itself needs to change to support a different type of interaction between these regional “groups” where the perpetual “threat” inherent between nation-states is removed.

competition killing us – keeping us from us.. pisa ness – as if the school math mattered.. – such a great example of our obsession for efficiency.. to be #1… is killing us.. blinding us.. numbing us… imprisoning us..

In the end, the most relevant issue is stress.

catching fire:From now on your job is to be a distraction – so people forget what the real problems are – Haymitch

poverty is the worst form of violence. Ghandi

With respect to the ever mutating “schools” of thought that have brought the economic debate to where it rests today, the academic, often formulaic traditionalized evolution of established economic theory (and practice) appears to have developed a self-referring frame of reference.1

Overall, the utilitarian (hedonistic, and competitive and “forever dissatisfied”) model of human nature is likely the most common defense of the capitalist system today. It is, in many ways, both a psychological theory of how people behave and an ethical theory of how they ought to behave, arguably supporting a retroactive logic that often puts market theory before human behavioral reality, conforming the latter to the former.

“The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He is at home when he is not working, and when he is working he is not at home. His labour is therefore not voluntary but coerced; it is forced labour. It is therefore not the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it.” – Marx

“This natural-rights theory of property makes the creative effort of an isolated, self-sufficing individual the basis of ownership vested in him. In so doing it overlooks the fact that there is no isolated, self-sufficing individual… – Veblen

government control by business was not an anomaly. It was simply what government had manifested to be by design.269 By its very nature, as an institutionalized means for social control, government would always protect the “rich” against the “poor”. Since the “poor” always greatly outnumbered the “rich”, a rigid legal structure favoring the wealthy (“propertied interests”) had to exist to keep the class separation and benefit to the capitalist interests intact.270 – Veblen

invisible hand of the market..

In economics, the invisible hand of the market is a metaphor conceived by Adam Smith to describe the self-regulating behavior of the marketplace. Individuals can make profit, and maximize it without the need for government intervention.[1] The exact phrase is used just three times in Smith’s writings, but has come to capture his important claim that individuals’ efforts to maximize their own gains in a free market may benefit society, even if the ambitious have no benevolent intentions.

Today, most walk around afraid of each other since exploitation and abuse is the dominant, rewarded ethos. All humans have adapted in this culture, unnecessarily, to see each other as threats to one’s own survival in increasingly abstract “economic” contexts.

All recessions/depressions287 are a result, on one level or another, of a loss of sales. Therefore the most critical necessity for keeping people employed and hence keeping the economy in a state of “stability“ or “growth” is constant, cyclical consumption

Outside the dynamics of the market economy, it is extremely difficult to argue against the need for optimum design of goods. Sadly, the nature of market efficiency disallows such technical efficiency by default

In fact, the most notable historical example of this period was the Phoebus light bulb cartel of the 1930s where, in a time where light bulbs were able to last up to about 25,000 hours, the cartel forced each company to restrict light bulb life to less than 1000 hours to assure repeat purchases.3

Localization”, meaning the deliberate reduction of distance between and around all facets of production and distribution, is the most technically efficient manner for a community to operate

from the standpoint of technical efficiency, one collective cell phone company, working to produce the strategically best, most adaptable, universally compatible design, would not only be more respectful of the environment, it would also create a tremendous ease and use efficiency as well

imagine if unis alone worked this way..

the competitive system seeks secrecy when it comes to business ideas, often universally against the open flow of knowledge. The use of patents and proprietary rights or “trade secrets” perpetuates not an advance of innovation as many proponents of the competitive market assume – but retardation.

how odd it is for anyone to rationally claim “ownership” of an idea or invention.

The common semi-economic term used today is “usufruct”, which means “the legal right of using and enjoying the fruits or profits of something belonging to another.“313 In reality, however, all attributes of every idea in existence today, in the past and forever in the future, has without exception a distinctly social, not personal point of origin

It becomes obvious that the notion of intellectual property, meaning ownership of mere thoughts and ideas, has manifest out of the vast period of human history where one’s creativity has become tied to one’s personal survival

It is also easy to see how the phenomenon of “ego” has manifest around the idea of intellectual ownership as well, since the basis of reward in such a system invariably has a psychological tie to one’s personal sense of self-worth. If a person “invents” something, files for intellectual ownership, exploits it for profit and then manifests a large house and extensive property, his or her “status” as a human being is traditionally elevated as far as the standards set by culture – he/she is considered a “success”

the sharing of knowledge has no negative recourse outside of the economic premise of ownership for profit exploitation. There is nothing to lose and, indeed, an enormous amount to be gained socially by the sharing of information.

Given that our current sociological condition demands human employment as the backbone of market sustainability, hence market efficiency, the ethic of “work” and its identity associations, culturally, have perpetuated a force where the actual function of the labor role – its true utility – becomes less important than the mere act of labor itself.

even today we could step back and ask ourselves what the social role of many institutions really is and perhaps come to the conclusion that they serve only to keep moving money around, not to create or actually contribute anything tangible for the benefit of society.

the reality of scarcity in the current economic system is a source of great efficiency in the market sense for if people had their basic needs met, or if they were able to meet those needs without the external pressure of irresolvable debt which keeps the imbalances – cyclical consumption, profit and growth would suffer. As insidious as it may seem to our intuition and humanity, that keeping people deprived is actually a positive precondition for the workings of the market, this is the reality

Problem resolution is not sought by the market as it then creates an income void and hence a loss of monetary gain and movement.

as positive as the intent of these new organizations and business planners may be, the inefficiency inherent to the capitalist model of economics – with all its need for certain forms of contrived “efficiency” to maintain itself – immediately pollutes and deeply limits all such attempts, which explains why such technical efficiency approaches have still yet to really be applied.

ie: can’t be good unless we can measure it.. show it’s been efficient growth modeling.. credential it badge it define it..

I believe that greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament; I have come to the conclusion that greed and fear of scarcity are in fact being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using…The direct consequence is that we have to fight with each other in order to survive.326 -Bernard Lietaer

While it is intellectually clear that no single person invents anything given the reality that all knowledge is serially generated and invariably cumulative over time, the market economy’s characteristic of “ownership” creates a tendency not only to reduce information flow via patents and “trade secrets”, it also reinforces the idea of “intellectual property”, despite the true fallacy of the notion itself.

Today, for instance, when we use a modern computer to assist our lives, we seldom think about the thousands of years of intellectual study that discovered the core scientific dynamics related, nor the enormous amount of cumulative time spent by virtually countless people to facilitate the “invention” of such a tool, in its current form. It is only in the context of manifest ego and monetary reward security that this becomes a “natural” value issue with respect to the market system.

The fear inherent to the loss of livelihood naturally overrides almost everything and even the most “ethical” or “moral” person, when faced with the risk of non-survival, can usually justify actions that would be traditionally called “corrupt”. This pressure is constant and is the source, in part, of the vast co-called “criminality” and social paralysis we see today.

ie: teachers… i’ve spoken with one on one (been one myself) carrying on with school as is, even though their gut knows better.. (just currently have no mechanism to change that without hurting people)

Building on the prior point, exploitation, which is inherent to the competitive frame of mind, has permeated the very core of what it means to “succeed” in general

Studies of this nature are very interesting as they reveal that the common human nature argument in its extreme context, that of people inevitably “being competitive and exploitative”, when defending the current social system, is bypassed. Class relationships are not genetic relationships, even though the nuances of individual propensities could be argued. This study expresses a cultural phenomenon overall since it is axiomatic to assume that the general attitude of disregard for external negative consequences, or so-called “unethical behavior” expressed by the upper class, is a result of the type of values needed to achieve the position of actually making it to the “upper class”.

perpetuating the idea that people aren’t good. that there is only one story. when actually the one story is just because we’ve only looked at people already emmersed in this egosystem.. ie: people don’t have a propensity for laziness… bach, mcgonigal.. those are just manufactured/necessary elements of our current unquestioned social system

A study conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy using tax-deduction data from the Internal Revenue Service, showed that households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 a year give an average of 7.6% of their discretionary income to charity. That compares to 4.2% for people who make $100,000 or more. In some of the wealthiest neighborhoods, with a large share of people making $200,000 or more a year, the average giving rate was 2.8%.350

This is not to discount the intelligence or hard work of those who hold vast wealth, but to show that the rewards of the system are displaced, allocated to those who exploit the mechanisms of the market, not those who actually engineer and create. In fact, one of the most rewarded sectors of the global economy today is that of investment and finance.353 This is a classic example as to be a “hedge fund” manager, moving money around for the mere sake of gaining more money, with zero contribution to creative development,354 is one of the highest paid occupations in the world today.

The value system disorder of rewarding, in effect, generally the most ruthless and selfish in our society, both by financial means and then by public adoration and respect, is one of the most pervasive and insidious consequences of the incentive system inherent to the Capitalist model

the myth is that this neurosis of seeking “more and more” status and wealth is the core driver of social progress and innovation. While there might be some basic truth to this intuitive assumption, the intent, again, is not social contribution but advantage and financial gain. It is like saying being chased by a pack of hungry wolves ready to eat you is good for your health since it is keeping you running

Given that the value system of “acquisition” is, in fact, necessary for the consumption model to work, it is only natural that marketing and advertising generate dissatisfaction continually, including in the way we feel about our physical appearance

if the intention of a ruling class were to limit any interference from the lower classes, they would protectively work to limit people’s sense of possibility.

when people argue that government regulation of the market is the root of the problem and that the market should be “free” without structural or legal inhibition, they are confused in their associative understanding. The entire legal system, which is the central tool of government, will always be “infiltrated” and used to assist in competitive tactics by business to maintain and increase advantage since that is the very nature of the game. To expect anything else is to assume that there are actually “moral” limits to the act of competition

catching fire – remember who the enemy is.. competition to counter the myth of scarcity..

This reinvented notion of “freedom” basically says that we are all “free” to compete with each other and take what we can.

Today, true freedom is directly related to the amount of money a person has.

those in poverty, which is the majority,371 face a severe reduction of choice. The pressures of their limited economic capacity creates a powerful state of coercion by which they not only must take labor roles they might not appreciate to survive, they are often subject to vast exploitation in the form of low wage rates due to that same desperation. In fact, general poverty, in this context, is a very positive condition for the capitalist class for it ensures cost-efficiency in the form of cheaper labor

the market system simply cannot facilitate these improvements because the nature of their culmination is against the very mechanisms of the system

Today, whether legal or not, nearly anything can be bought or sold.378 You can buy the right to bypass carbon emissions regulations,379 you can upgrade your prison cell for a fee,380 buy the right to hunt endangered animals,381 and even buy your way into a prestigious university without meeting testing requirements.3

It becomes a strange state when some of the most normal, natural acts of human life become incentivized by money as well, such as how it is being used to encourage children to read,383 or encourage weight loss.384 Psychologically, what does it mean for a child when they are reinforced with money for their most basic actions? How will this affect their future sense of reward?

The US Department of State has published “It is estimated that as many as 27 million men, women, and children around the world are victims of what is now often described with the umbrella term “human trafficking.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood of his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man”- with his mouth.387 – Mark Twain

In many countries today, either by obligation from birth411 or by persuasion to legally binding contracts412 the pressure or motivation to join the military itself is manipulative on many levels. Advertising tactics such as “money for college” or “personal accomplishment” are common, arguably targeting the lower rungs of the economic hierarchy.413 The United States is on record for having at times spent billions a year ($4.7 billion in 2009) on global public relations in assist public image and recruitment.414

Using America as a case study, in 2011 the country gained about $2.3 trillion in federal income tax revenues alone.415

Butler was the author of a famous book released after World War I titled War is a Racket, and stated the following with respect to the business of war: “War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”

t is illogical to assume that the nature of government is anything else at its core than a vehicle to support the businesses that comprise the wealth of that country. The business apparatus really is the country in technical form, regardless of the surface claim that a “democratic” country is organized around the interests of the citizenry itself. In fact, it can be well argued that no government in recorded history has ever offered its citizens a legitimate place in governance or legislation and within the context of modern capitalism, which is still a manifestation of centuries old values and assumptions with a clear elitism in intent, it is interesting how this myth of “democracy” perpetuates itself today in the way that it does.

starting with this awareness that the very premise of global “democracy” is deeply inhibited by the capitalist incentive system to competitively maintain power on the level of the state to assist the upper class in preserving political and, by extension, financial power, a clearer picture of how deep this class war runs is obtained. Likely the most striking aspect of this is how such mechanisms of class division exist in our every day lives but yet go unseen since they are structurally built in to the financial, political and legal apparatus itself

This means the banks, which are always owned by members of the upper class to be sure, are taking houses, cars and property of the lower classes, simply because the money they created out of thin air in the form of a loan is not being returned to them. This is, in essence, a covert form of physical wealth transfer from the lower to the upper class

repossessions as theft

It is going to take a new type of thinking to overcome these sociological trends and at the heart of such dramatic cultural change rests the change of the socioeconomic premise itself.

or a waking up to an old type – something already within us.. yet dormant… type

a “war game” has culminated, built out of the assumption of universal, perpetually reinforced scarcity, which moves forward today on its own momentum, largely absent of its original causal reasoning.

“political” governance as we know it is really nothing more than an outgrowth of economic inefficiency.

Very few would care much about “who was in power” or other such traditional notions if they clearly understood the process of economic unfolding and were able to contribute and gain without conflict

can relate this directly to ed.. and our need to own knowledge.. own the power to credential..

no greater issue of importance than the system of economic unfolding when it comes to the conduct and stability of human beings on both the personal and social level

“corruption” today, more often than not, finds its psychological root in this competitive awareness both on the personal level, the corporate (business) level & on the level of government in the form of war, tyranny and self-preserving collusion. In fact, it can be well argued that the very notion of “ethical” in a world decidedly working to gain at the expense of others becomes a highly relative and almost arbitrary distinction.

in order for this new reality of efficiency to be harnessed, the archaic barriers ingrained in our everyday way of life, specifically our perception of economics, need to be reevaluated and likely overcome entirely. As noted in prior essays, the term “utopia” commonly arises as a pejorative term amongst those who tend to dismiss large scale social improvement due to either a cynicism of so-called “human nature” or an outright disbelief in humanity’s technical capacity to now adjust greatly with new technical means.

the relationship of “success” and “property” has been culturally manufactured based upon system necessity and is now a staple value of our consumer-based society.

In a world now driven by “economic growth” to keep employment at a reasonable level; in a world which overtly praises those with great financial wealth as a measure of success; in a world that actually rewards behaviors of human indifference and ruthless competition for market share (rather than honest social contribution for overall human betterment); it is no mystery as to why the idea of a single human owning, say, a 400 room mansion on 500,000 acres of private land with 50 cars and five planes parked in the front yard has become part of an ideal, coveted vision of personal (and social) success. Yet, from the perspective of true human sustainability, this view is pure violence and exists in nearly the same category of one who hoards food and resources he or she doesn’t need and refuses to allow others access for the sake of abstract principle.500 If we imagine a small island of ten people were two people decide to extract and hoard 1,000% more than they need to be healthy, leaving eight people to live in abject poverty and/or dying – would you find this arrangement an act of “personal freedom” by those two – or an act of social violence against the eight?

location 3366 42% on – on kindle – great ideas.. good to show potential.. but reality will be even better (iwan baan ness) once we set people free.. so a mechanism to ground that chaos.. rather than telling people to do these things.. seems vital. and well worth it (even thought by these last pages – we could do it on current thinking alone), because again – ideas will blow us away … and alive/thinking people will perpetuate alive/thinking people – which is optimal sustainability.. no?

important to remember that when it comes to the history of economic thought itself, the frame of reference has had more to do with assumptions of human behavior

once it is recognized that our society operates without a large scale preconception of its own physical design, one might begin to realize the enormous level of unnecessary waste and technical inefficiency inherent to such a short-sighted process.

if we step out of the box of market logic and examine how we could directly design a more technically efficient and localized set of systems, within the global setting, we find that the current method is not only inferior, it is rather offensive.

The United States military alone, with its roughly 845,441 military buildings and bases, occupies about 30 million acres of land globally.598 Only 0.04% of that land would be needed to disinfect the total fresh water use of the entire world, if it were even needed at scale, which it is not

the market economy is not just a response to a scarcity-based worldview, it is also a preserver of it. The market structurally requires a high degree of scarcity, as an abundance focused society would eventually mean less labor-for-income, less turnover and less profit on the whole. If society woke up tomorrow to a world where 50% of the human job market was automated and where all food, energy and basic goods could be made available without a price tag due to increased efficiency, needless to say the job market and monetary economy as we know it would collapse.

Therefore, part of this value shift will be “undoing” the sociological damage done by the psychology inherent to market-based living

It is also important to note that property is not an empirical concept, only access is. Property is a protectionist contrivance. Access is the reality of the human/social condition. In order for one to truly “own”, say, a computer, one would have had to personally come up with technological ideas that made it work, along with the ideas that comprise the tools of its production. This is literally impossible. There is no such thing as empirical property in reality. There is only access and sharing, no matter what social system is employed.

the pursuit of meeting human needs and the removal of “labor-for-income” occupations, which often have no real technical function, would set in motion a new educational possibility, reinforced by an incentive to pursue personal interests and hence the freedom not to feel pressured away from fields of interest since survival and well-being are already taken care of by the social model itself. It is hard to imagine the explosion of creativity possible when this pressure is removed and society is set free to think clearly.

While “open-source” research and development gets a fair amount of attention today, the ability to harness the communicative power of the internet to create a global dialogue about any given technology or idea will facilitate a type of interactive development never before seen, once focused.

2 convos..

while such futuristic and seemingly “science-fiction” speculations are unneeded to justify our modern, tangible capacity to create abundance, these new and emerging mediums should not be overlooked as they are set to have a great impact, if embraced properly.71

and really – what we need – not so futuristic.. check out africa.. no?

In the 19th century, aluminum was more valuable than gold, even though it is technically one of the most abundant elements in the world. However, before the discovery of electrolysis, it was extremely difficult to extract. Once this technical process was discovered, almost overnight the scarcity of the material plummeted. Today, we tend to use aluminum with a throwaway mindset. Such dramatic historical changes are important to keep in mind as the same kind of advancement is occurring across many disciplines, often hidden from most people’s comprehension and far beyond their expectations.

The United States Department of Defense is one of the largest single consumers of energy in the world, responsible for 93% of all US government fuel consumption in 2007.743

all 7 billion can fit in state of texas..

Realizing and striving to think in the context of interconnected systems is critical for intellectual development, hence creating an educational imperative for people to also learn more as “generalists” as opposed to rigid “specialists”, which is the current pattern due to the structure of our traditional labor roles. Sadly, our educational system today has been shaped and structured not to create well-rounded understandings of the world, but rather directs focus to isolated and narrow specialties, which reduce systems comprehension consequently.

Today, all across the world, the human interest to explore, create and improve exists, regardless of the monetary imposition. However, due the constant pressure for income in the current model, nearly all such acts assume the needed context of a pursuit of money for survival.

The nature and unfolding of the politically driven model of representative democracy, legislation creation and the sanctioned enforcement of law, are all borne out of natural tendencies inherent to the act of commerce and trade, operating within a scarcity-driven social order

the dyad of state and market synergy is, in reality, a single power system in play, at once. Irrespective of the merit of any specific argument as to the favoring of the “free market” vs. the favoring of “state regulation”, all business dealings have historically required some level of legal mediation. This is because all transactions are a form of competition and all competition invites the possibility of fraud or abuse, given the natural pressure of external circumstances and the nature of survival itself, within the bounds of the scarcity-based market.

complaining about state regulation or lack thereof is ultimately a moot issue in the broad scheme of long-term societal change. True social change will not come about by the illusive preference of one of these over the other. It will only come about by installing a completely different system which eliminates both the market and the state as we know it, elevating the entire framework out of the narrow, competitive focus of managing scarcity in the current “earn a living or suffer” system, to a focus on facilitating a sustainable abundance and the meeting of human needs directly

participation is mediated through digital communication methodsthat can bring the interests of the whole community into calculation, whether dealing with interests of the so-called “public” sector or the “private” sector. In actuality, there is no difference in the process of participation and hence there would no longer be a public or private sector.

If the educational system is orientated away from rote learning and its antiquated basis that originated in the 19th century social order, we could see an explosion of input and creativity.

the sooner.. we use – literally redefine – as a funnel – the quicker we hasten equity.. no?

not getting (need for) algorithmic reasoning p. 258ff.. and not sure of use of same words, ie: consumer, mass production, efficiency even in some spots, … is it a checks and balance that we’re all zooming out enough.. as we’re sustaining ourselves locally?

The truth of the matter is that human beings, even in the highly competitive and materialistic orientation of the United States, still decide to do a great deal without an interest in monetary reward.

once set free, the creative, collaborative contribution propensity itself, which is the true driver of progress, will no longer be inhibited by the monotony of labor or the income system. It is very difficult to predict the incredible level of productivity and focus a society may achieve once such oppressive factors are removed.

imagining even getting to a place where the concept of productivity and progress even.. is foreign..

p. 280 – on adolescent.. rebellious age of development..? what if adolescence as we know it (and claim that it’s rebellious) is caused by our competitive society based on scarcity as well.. only compounded by youth being forced in a more intense/enclosed society perpetuating/originating the mindset.. via compulsory/coercive curriculum/rules et al.. no?

[interesting p 315 talking about setting self above nature (which i’m not sure authentic meaning of image of god refers to) then adjacent page goes on to say (scientifically) how much greater capacity to think we have than any other species.. and that the human is so incredible..??? help to understand this distinction..]

3 developing projects:

a) global redesign institute or gri

online collaborative interface like wikipedia to redesign the surface of earth.. based on sustainability and efficiency.

This idea of “self-containment per scale degree”806 is important and even applies towards structures, such as houses. The ideal house would be off-the-grid and self-contained in its energy sourcing and with redundant backup energy sources in place should anything become compromised

While the business mindset will often romanticize about “helping the world” and “pleasing consumers”, the only real measure is profit. It is simply assumed that gaining profit means helping the world, which is clearly not the case given the vast declines in our habitat integrity and the fact that there are now more slaves in the world than ever before.862

This, again, isn’t to say anyone is “bad”, but rather to note that any system which has the capacity to even create such extreme wealth imbalance, in and of itself, needs to be addressed as the root problem it is – not the supposed charity of those who have been able to play the market game to such an extent as to accrue such irrational and wasteful sums. It is not a cynical view in this light to consider such things as the “Giving Pledge” as more of an insult than a solution.

After a period of this success, the world slowly begins to see the incredible result of their moneyless economy.

just the vision for city as school – people experiment – hastening it by channeling through public education.. so time is instantly gained – 7 hrs a day ish.. fresh minds who can do incredible things – jack et al ish… and stopping of the brain wash of compulsory curriculum..

Sometimes the slightest things change the directions of our lives, the merest breath of a circumstance, a random moment that connects like a meteorite striking the earth. Lives have swiveled and changed direction on the strength of a chance remark.877 -Bryce Courtenay

23 min – it’s a train of thought.. not isms.. labels.. that way can have a conversation about it.. non utility with labels.. ie: people just dismiss it.. we already tried that..

26 min – hunter gatherers no money/markets.. need to trade.. became codified into new system of capitalism.. from birth of agrarian revolution.. basis of scarcity..came to fix it..

38 min – zero cost.. the most major phenom.. a whole new level of engagement in a kind of participatory democracy.. a system that has decision making built into it

40 min – have you engaged w american academia – i don’t think of it as a relationship or not.. i do see.. the connection with the system that rewarded them.. they tend to shy away.. high ed also indoctrination.. only know what they assume

42 min – i source all sorts of academics.. they are just in pockets.. i think there are really smart people out there.. but they are afraid to rock the boat.. we haven’t reached that group acceptance.. that there’s something wrong..

3 min – progress – more you buy more you own.. a cultural violence (johan galtung).. the more people promote consumeristic/materialistic values.. promoting destruction of environment and diminishment of others

4 min – i often wonder what a world would be like w/o advertising.. which would be a world w/o marketing/markets.. it would be a whole lot diff.. far more peaceful/sustainable..amiable.. humane

i often wonder what world would be like w/o money (any measuring of transactions)

all money that’s made in the world.. comes from lower class making loans.. people should be raged by that.. but they don’t see it.. it’s a structural phenom.. happening under surface..t

very covert.. the financial sector is the polluting force that underlies everything..

19 min – poor aren’t poor because left behind.. because of colonization..t

abby: start from poverty is violence

socioeconomic ineq.. which poverty falls under.. class stratification has been held up as some kind of innovator.. so not just poverty that is violence.. to be in a stratified system is against well-being & public health..t

stop measuring transactions .. validating people.. et al

20 min – the more you witness the haves/have-nots.. the more it messes you up.. then says numbers of deaths because of poverty

21 min – every time there’s a bust.. wealthy can endure.. actually booms..

22 min – we still have that ideology of trickle down..

the greatest inefficiency is that we have poverty at all..t

we’re doing more and more with less and less.. that is the driving force that can create equitable distribution and wealth.. so the fact that we have 5 people now who have more wealth than 1/2 of the world.. and you have close to a billion people not getting nutrition met.. and if you have what peter edwards – called the ethical poverty line – based on life span.. not metrics put out by un.. using this.. find that 60% of the world is actually in poverty.. that is lunacy from an efficiency standpoint..

23 min – no one can sit there and claim that this is an efficient system when that’s the outcome on the social level.. now we can talk about the efficiency of the factory and all the other great fruits of tech that others claim to associate to capitalism.. which is nonsense too.. it’s our ability to design that’s created this.. not some weird mech contributed to capitalism

waste is insane.. you have 40% of all food wasted.. because of inefficiencies of distribution pipeline.. the average american footplate moves about 1400 miles

23 min – if you look at what we can actually do.. there’s no reason for anyone to be hungry

24 min – you can’t have sustainability..preservation ..efficiency in a society that rewards the opposite.. and therein lies the great contradiction of the capitalist system..

25 min – everyone trying to do something.. but no concentrated focus.. there needs to be basically a manhattan project.. to figure out what the best solution is globally to unify the synergies of all of our renewables.. and to make them all work..t

and if we did that.. if we actually go the minds of all the unis together right now.. in uni project across entire world.. and say.. we’re going to focus on this problem right now: what is the combo of renewables.. how is it distributed across the world.. and how do we make it create an abundance at zero..

why not all 7 bn people.. why just uni people.. who might be the most intoxicated

sounds like people pushing to make school real by finding project based learning.. need to go deeper..

again.. only way it will work is if we have 7 bn alive people.. that energy..

27 min – on vertical farming

29 min – greatest source of oppression on this planet: labor.. so.. automation.. not only more efficient/safer.. but also dramatic shift in way human relations has been.. if we can finally remove that ownership labor.. classist duality.. with automation.. worth it there..

30 min – there’s only over population in our society because we’re so inefficient

i can’t even emphasize enough what it would do to psychology of people to be free of that drudgery and sense of exploitation of each other (labor)

open source..collab commons.. far transcends what *any boardroom/co can do

*group of uni’s as well.. let’s do real .. open.. collab

34 min – if we know what we want and how to confer to next stage.. no need for competition.. it reenforces the in group out group.. can justify just about anything.. ie: just the competitive nature..

37 min – society started to build in structures.. hasn’t been much of a shift.. the force of desert based.. then stratified.. then suddenly manifested as today.. compete and win.. then empires.. to maintain as much total global dominance as they can..

you have to break it.. and the only way to break it is to start with root changes in what started all of this.. which is effectively.. the economic perception.. the perception of your survival in your group.. if you change that.. then you’ll be able to slowly morph society back into.. well.. what was really a pre neolithic kind of worldview.. which was all based on community.. gift giving..

38 min – 99% of human society existed w/o money & markets.. a lot of people forget that too.. so .. this isn’t some.. inevitability .. the way that we live..

what is the silver bullet that could possible transform this negative trajectory that we’re on.. and that is structural change of the economy.. morality is not gonna do it.. more free will’s not gonna do it.. our rational sense is not going to do it.. in and of itself.. because we are so inhibited/dominated.. by the structural psychology generated from our social system..

short bp – a kind of bi as temp placebo.. to reset structure.. sans money/measuring

38 min – if we don’t focus on the root.. we keep sparsely drawing attention.. to this or that protest/activist-initiative.. to certain pockets .. it just ends up running in place.. now..

it’s time for galvanization toward removing the foundation of our social system.. and that’s the market.. we have to start to move away from market econ as rapidly as we possibly can .. to save our ecology and to save the stability of our society in terms of group relationships..

53 min – scott – humanity capable of so much more.. use tech to create abundance for everybody.. when i saw bi i thought.. this is it.. can’t get people to consider huge things if focused on what’s in front of them.. can’t focus long term in society .. trying to get by.. money to live.. as soon as you require.. no money to live.. money loses importance..

55 min – scott – it’s about so much more than money.. if we can de couple income from work.. it’s a game changer.. ie: the effect of scarcity on thinking.. iq test in india before (low iq) an after harvest (high iq) – diff of 14 pts

A tip for humanity: There are hundreds of marginalized groups in recorded history that have suffered at the hands of groupism and bigotry, enduring genocide as a common practice. Let us not assume any of these atrocities outweigh any of the others. Just say NO to group loyalty. https://t.co/43w7XkfUnf